The Monkey Exhibithttp://www.qwertyuppy.com
Now with 90% less monkeyThu, 12 Jan 2017 15:07:27 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.1Human Naturehttp://www.qwertyuppy.com/2017/01/human-nature/
http://www.qwertyuppy.com/2017/01/human-nature/#respondThu, 12 Jan 2017 15:07:27 +0000http://www.qwertyuppy.com/?p=1185Why do people assume the worst (or is it just me)?

I needed to order contact lenses, but I hadn’t been to the eye doctor in 3 years. They wanted to see me before ordering new contacts. After the doctor was done, he sat silently writing for a couple awkward minutes. While waiting, I was thinking “why is he so quiet? Why is he writing so much? What is he consulting as he flips back and forth through my previous visits? Am I going blind? Is he trying to find a way to tell me I’m going blind? You’d think he’d have done this before. Should I ask him if I should insure my sight? Can you even do that? If I walk out now and call my insurance company to insure my sight, will they find out I knew I was going blind and cancel my policy? I have a lot of books I want to read. I wonder how long I have to finish my pile of unread books…”

Then he said something about seeing how far into the new year he could get without writing the old year.

A screw was coming loose from my wife’s glasses. I tried to screw it back in, but it wouldn’t go in straight. I figured I’d take it out and start over. When I took the screw out, it wouldn’t go back in. At all. The holes just don’t line up, which probably explains why it wouldn’t go in straight to begin with.

If that’s the worst thing that happened to me in 2016, I guess I’m doing all right. My wife is wearing an old pair of glasses, and she may have another opinion on the whole subject.

]]>http://www.qwertyuppy.com/2015/12/loot-list-15/feed/0Sandra Jean Davis Memorialhttp://www.qwertyuppy.com/2015/06/sandra-jean-david-memorial/
http://www.qwertyuppy.com/2015/06/sandra-jean-david-memorial/#respondThu, 04 Jun 2015 15:10:26 +0000http://www.qwertyuppy.com/?p=1146Nanny (Sandra Jean) was born 12/28/1939 in Bangor, Maine to Florence and Norman. It was Thursday, under the sign of Capricorn. The US president was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Color TVs were not yet invented.

Little about her childhood is known, but there is no definitive proof that she wasn’t a child prodigy or imbued with super powers. Just saying.

She graduated Brewer High School in 1958 and married Grampa on April 10, 1958. Back then, she always went by “Jean.”

Eight and a half months later, her first child was born. The house would be full of children, she had four, and then grandchildren for many, many years to come. It was her grandchildren that would dub her “Nanny.”

Where Nanny really shined was with her grandchildren. Her grandchildren were always welcome, and she was always willing to give them the love and attention they desired. Nanny never hesitated to tell me how many times she got up with me in the middle of the night when I was a baby. My earliest, and some of my fondest memories, were at Nanny’s house in Eddington.

Nanny never complained when her grandchildren would build a fort under the kitchen table and then run off without cleaning it up…at least she never complained to us. She never complained to us when cutlery went missing because her grandchildren had taken it outside to play and left it under a tree. However, she might have been a tad upset when we would drink too much of her Tab.
For those unaware, Tab is a diet cola soft drink produced by The Coca-Cola Company, introduced in 1963. All of my memories from the house on the Nickerson Rd in Eddington include Tab as the drink of choice. At some point she changed from Tab to Diet Pepsi. Diet Pepsi was never quite as alluring as the mysterious Tab.

Somewhere in the hustle and bustle of raising children and grandchildren, she found the time to become a CNA at Eastern Maine Medical Center.

When she and Grampa divorced, she remarried to become Sandra Jean Davis. By this time she was known as “Sandra” instead of “Jean.”

She lived on Pearl Street in Bangor, still loved to have her grandchildren over, and collected as many knick-knacks as she could to elegantly decorate her first floor apartment. It was in this lovely apartment where many of her other grandchildren would make their memories with Nanny. These may or may not include metal-edged BINGO chips and magnetic wands. (No? Just me?)

Time passed, situations changed, and Nanny was forced to move around. She was at times homeless, lived in the Freese’s Building, and lived at the Phillips-Strickland House. It was during this phase that her mind started to deteriorate. She would do things like catch her hair on fire while cooking, or drop a salad, breaking the bowl, just to pick it up and put it in another container…with some of the broken glass from the original bowl.

Somewhere in this timeframe, she also earned the name “Nana Hemp” as she shared a story about growing a “very pretty plant” in her window for a while only to later learn it was marijuana.

Nanny moved to Florida with Cindy in 2013. Who wouldn’t rather spend their final years basking in the sun rather than freezing in the snow? Also, retired dudes.

Sandra Jean Davis died peacefully, with her daughter Cindy by her side on May 17, 2015.

She is survived by her sister Linda, daughter Sally and her husband John, daughter Cindy, and her son Dan.

We figured Sunday would be a good shopping day. Other activities may not be open, plus we were still a bit tired from the trip.

The wife’s primary goal on the vacation was to get cowgirl boots.

I needed some jeans and replacement cargo pants. I always live on the edge, I know.

The Lucky Jeans saleswoman said their jeans would change my life. I told her I wasn’t sure I was ready for that kind of commitment. Bought two pair of Wrangler instead. The wife got a couple shirts.

We visited a couple different outlet malls with little success in finding stuff we were really interested in. Maybe hitting outlets multiple times a year has accustomed us a bit too much.

We ended the day at Thee Pits Again for some BBQ, as seen on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. There were a couple good items on my sampler plate, but far more that was just OK.

We just went back to the resort to relax the rest of the day.

]]>http://www.qwertyuppy.com/2014/07/day-1-shopping/feed/0Vacation: Arizonahttp://www.qwertyuppy.com/2014/07/vacation-arizona/
http://www.qwertyuppy.com/2014/07/vacation-arizona/#respondSun, 06 Jul 2014 15:45:49 +0000http://www.qwertyuppy.com/?p=1130This year vacation has brought us to Arizona. The availability fit our timeframe and our desire for a warm vacation. Here we are in Phoenix, our brains a day (due to the Friday holiday) and three hours ahead of these Pacific Timers (some of our electronics still show Eastern Time, though they supposedly sync on their own). We have no complaints about the heat!

Sunday will be shopping day. Everything opens between 10 and 11. We’ve got boots, books, and outlet shopping on tap.

]]>http://www.qwertyuppy.com/2014/07/vacation-arizona/feed/0Drivinghttp://www.qwertyuppy.com/2014/02/driving/
http://www.qwertyuppy.com/2014/02/driving/#respondTue, 25 Feb 2014 17:20:42 +0000http://www.qwertyuppy.com/?p=1121I was merging onto the interstate when the oncoming car in the travel lane started honking his horn and pointing vehemently at the Yield sign in front of me. The odd thing is that I had already timed my entry to pass behind his car, assuming he didn’t slam on his brakes or do something else similarly stupid on the interstate. Also, there was nobody in the passing lane, and he could have easily moved over to let me into the travel lane to let me on if he was worried about my car.

Sometimes I don’t move over if I’m worried about not having a chance to get back in the right lane before my exit, but this guy didn’t get off any of the next 3 exits. He also was distractedly weaving about his lane and completely ignoring the speed limit.

Why get so up in arms about making sure I see one sign while he was ignoring another? What’s this guy’s deal?